Justisplainin the unjustisplainable leads only to a repetition of such types of acts

The other day I saw someone, a yt liberal sadly, explicating that 'slavery was a way of life back then' and that we really shouldn't judge the mores of those days with today's morality. Holy loly guacamole!!!!!!!!!! This is the kind of thinking that terrifies me, especially when it's coming from a White liberal. I expect conservatives to split these kinds of hairs, uncomfortable as they are saying a bad word about Jefferson, Washington et. al. but liberals? Progressives? These are the people I want to believe know more of the truth and have no trouble chowing down on some BBQ'd sacred cow. But no, I forget myself. I've read MLK Jr's., Letter from Birmingham Jail, so I really should know better.

It's 2017 so this explanation shouldn't be necessary, but here it is anyway: yes, slavery was a 'way of life', a profitable and unbelievably savage one. In a choice between profit and humanity, predominantly White oppressors chose profit. Manifest Destiny gave oppressors the right to take whatever they saw that they wanted whether it already belonged to someone else or not. 

There was no question of the morality of chattel enslavement because cognitive dissonance wasn't a thing then (one might certainly experience it, but it had no name (that came in 1957) and the chorus of folk pointing out the wrongness of enslavement included far too many of the enslaved to be worthy of consideration).  As the lady liberal intimated, there were 'reasons' that made slavery the done thing. The question of its morality didn't matter then and apparently shouldn't matter now because folks keep finding ways to explicate enslavement, and to give 'free speech' air to nazism and other noxious views. 

There is a truth that some moderates still haven't comprehended to wit: some voices, some ideas should get no air. They must be suffocated. They must be starved of all oxygen if they are to expire. Some viewpoints must, for the good of humanity, be allowed to die. Any philosophy that speaks to the extermination of one group or another? Don't tell me about free speech rights. That ish has to go. It has to be cast into the Outer Darkness. 

Even in the moral code of the day, chattel slavery was an abomination, and those perpetrating it have to have known that, but like my liberal friend who could find a way to live with it, they found a way to live with it. The nation found a way to live with it, the nation's White majority found a way to live with it, (and apparently today's liberals have found a way to excuse it) because it (i) created massive profit for some small minority and (ii) it gave those not enjoying the financial benefits, someone upon whom to look down. "Slavery is a terrible thing but that cotton won't pick itself!" was the owners' mindset, while the poor whites mindset was one of Last Place Avoidance.

I have zero tolerance for anyone's  mealy-mouthed explanations of that dread institution. You cannot dance around that successfully with me. It was vile and the fact that anyone can "Yes, but" about slavery tells me everything I need to know about them and any allyship they might claim, worse than being simply performative, it is wholly dangerous. 

There are no justifications, explanations, or justisplanations for the enslavement of a people. None. They do not exist. Especially when, in 1688, sixteen eighty-eight, a mere sixty-nine years after the first African captives were brought to the US, the Pennsylvania Quakers passed the nation's first anti-slavery legislation. So stop looking for excuses and explanations. Quakers in the 1600s knew that slavery was wrong. Don't come now and try to bramble me with asshattery. If you are looking for excuses, may I suggest that you look within? Cuz that's where the trouble lies.

European enslavers and American plantation owners were brutal because they could be. Just f--king cuz. It was expedient, it could produce profit and they could get away with it. That's the answer some of y'all are looking for but are deathly afraid to own. Embrace it. There are no other explanations. 

Those who try to justify or otherwise explain this (and other) abominable behavior as aberrations are playing footsie with dangerous ideologies because it's the emotional low road and easier to walk. They're unwilling to accept that when it comes down to it, in this nation, common human decency has historically taken a distant back seat to profit. 'Back seat'? What am I even saying? Human decency ain't even in the car! It's running behind it, sucking up dust and falling further and further behind. 

Sadly, the stinking thinking that seeks to justisplain enslavement exists, and the fact that it does means that things like this are also possible.......

And this

Oh, and this

America claims that it is a Christian nation, but Christian nations worship God. Here, the only thing we (and when I say 'we' I generally mean 'y'all') worship is money. Mammon is king. Morality has no place in a properly capitalist society. 'Decency' has no currency. This is why, a journalist can write an entire article on the economic value of price gouging three days after Hurricane Harvey strikes Houston. Not only can he write it, it gets published. And on Forbes.com no less! Because profit is king and decency hath no place in the kingdom, or the palace, nor even on the grounds. 

When I point out that this kind of thinking is why an entire *race* was enslaved, and an entire *race* was forcibly removed from the land they owned, will you say I'm reaching?

When I point out that this kind of thinking makes the rape of the only planet upon which mankind can survive possible, will you say that I'm reaching?

When I point out that this kind of thinking makes economic exploitation and for-profit prisons possible, will you say that I'm reaching?

When I point out that this kind of thinking leads inevitably to a 'health-care industry' will you say that I'm straining hyperbole?

The profit before decency moral code makes all manner of horror in defense/pursuit of capitalism, perfectly acceptable. 

Even in the moral code of the day, chattel slavery was known, by at least the Quakers, to be an abomination. In 1733, Elihu Coleman published A Testimony Against that Anti-Christian Practice of Making Slaves of Men and yet the institution existed......some might say nevertheless it persisted. It persisted despite its odiousness because in a battle between profit and decency, profit always wins. That is America. 

Here we are today, 2017, and for-profit-prison is a thing; a judge whose husband profits from the incarcerations his wife orders is a thing; brutality meted out in the name of 'safety' is a thing; rendition, black sites are (were? Who really knows) a thing; and politicians whittling down the numbers of insured persons is a damn thing. And liberals can find ways to live with every one of these because capitalism is the unknown ideal (Ayn Rand). 

Carry on. 

Unstoppable Fragility

I've been trying to process Maria Sharapova's "Unstoppable" and put it in context, juxtapose it, as it were, with some other things. It's the only way to make sense of it.....if there's any 'sense' to be made.

My response to Maria's title

My conclusion: Maria's choice of title, and her deft (LOL, it's hardly 'deft' to those of us familiar with this play) wielding of White woman victim hood are 100% unsurprising.

One might be forgiven for expecting Maria's work to be different from what it is. One might be forgiven for thinking that those writing their memoirs are typically given to honest reflection on their lives, their successes, their failures.  One might be forgiven for thinking that since that's usually what 'memoirs' are about. But Ms. Maria decided to go a different route. 

In the course of labeling herself Unstoppable, the frequently-stopped-by-Serena Sharapova manages to blame such stoppage (please pronounce Frenchly) on Serena's hatred of her, not on the fact that she failed to win. This is how the presumptuousness of White supremacy works: heads I win, tails, you lose. Whatever the actual outcome, POC always lose, Whiteness always wins. 

A few other cases in point...

In the course of defending themselves, former Ofc Timothy Loehmann (who murdered Tamir Rice); Ofc. Betty Shelby, who murdered Terrence Crutcher; former Ofc. Michael Slager, who murdered Walter Scott, Ofc Yanez, who murdered Philando Castile and many other Unstoppables managed to blame someone other than themselves for the acts committed by their own hands. Heads, they won; tails, their victims lost. 

The question must be asked: what is it about these people that prevents them accepting any responsibility for the work of their very hands? The failures of their very hands? The bad acts of their very hands? What is that and where can I buy some of it? 

Sharapova loses (repeatedly, 18 times at last count) to Serena and that's somehow Serena's fault. "Serena hates me." No, Serena's better than you but God forbid you say those words.

Loehmann murders Rice and that's somehow Tamir's fault. "He looked like an adult." "He had a gun." "He didn't comply." No, he was twelve, he had a toy, you gave him 2 seconds in which to comply.

Shelby murders Crutcher and that's somehow Terrence's fault. "He didn't comply." "He looked like a bad dude." "He was high on PCP." No, no, no and no again. Unless you have some special super powers, you could no more know that he had PCP than you could know what he'd had for breakfast two weeks earlier. "Bad dude"? Is that the same as a "bad hombre", because once again, I'm not exactly sure how an officer in a helicopter could possibly assess 'badness' from  seeing the top of a man's head.

Yanez murders Castile and that's somehow Philando's fault. "He didn't comply." "He had a gun." "He should have....." Sigh. Do we really need to go through this again?

And now we have Ms. Unstoppable Sharapova, prognosticating that Serena - who has beat her ass eighteen times in a row - hates her because she (Maria) beat Serena once in the early Cretaceous period. Serena beat me because she hates me. This is the logic. It's Serena's *fault* that Sharapova lost......well, I guess I can't disagree with Po' Pova there. 

We have to be grateful to Sharapova for a couple of things. First, she's reminding us that White women are as complicit in White supremacy as White men. This is an important public service she's performing here, and I think we mustn't miss the moment. It's a very important reminder. Too easily do we forget, generally to our detriment. 

Second, Sharapova is publicly joining a pantheon of White women performatively claiming victim status. In her case, she's gone one step further than the norm and is doing it for both notoriety and profit. Usually, White women like Susan Smith and Emmett Till's accuser (Carolyn Donham) or Ofc. Sherry Hall in Georgia, who accused non-existent Black men of shooting at her, do so entirely out of self-preservatory instinct or malicious intent. Typically, there's no profit motive aforethought. Malice aforethought? Yeah, but profit typically no. Enter Maria the Unstoppably Fragile, taking the game to entirely new heights! Performative victim hood, with a payday!  Cha ching! Cha ching! Unstoppable indeed. 

Murica!